Midnight Questions
by DearBeliever
Summary: Something that I always felt an inquisitive mind like Anna's might have been curious about... Whether she would have voiced it or not, who knows. I hope that it feels true to the characters.


Few secrets existed between Anna and her husband by the time they had celebrated their first month of living together in their cottage. Typically, after their desires had been sated each night, they had grown accustomed to talking well into the small hours about everything and anything. The long, dark months of enforced letter correspondence between them had meant that they had learned many things about each other that may have otherwise taken years to emerge. Greatest fears, family secrets, childhood aspirations, they covered so many topics; desperate to know each other as well they could under the circumstances. But then, praise God, John had been released and their life together had truly begun.

Still, there remained one subject that Anna could not bring herself to broach. Yet she could not force herself to let it be either. It would be easier to quell her curiosity and let the information arise naturally throughout the course of their marriage, but she knew herself. She was headstrong and inquisitive. And John was stubborn and noble, thus ensuring an unvoiced stalemate of sorts. No, she must ask if she truly wanted to know, she determined.

The fact that, unusual for her, Anna had partaken of a glass of sherry on this particular evening before bed, may have had something to do with the clumsily worded question that had just come tumbling from her lips.

John's eyes hadn't moved, he hadn't even blinked in what must have been a minute now, Anna thought.

She lay on her side with her head propped up, regarding him cautiously. "I've said the wrong thing, haven't I?" she offered. "It was impolite of me to ask."

"It could never be impolite to ask your husband anything, Anna. I was just shocked for a moment. I assumed that you did not wish to know about…" he hesitated, searching for the words, " that part of my life before you. I never talked about other women I had known because I believed it would make you uncomfortable. And in truth, none of it matters anyway. My life feels like it's only just beginning."

Gaining confidence from his reaction and calm air, Anna continued with her line of questioning. She had to gain answers now or she would lose her nerve. It was too important to her. "I won't be offended. I'm just curious, John." Anna smoothed the sheet against her hip and forced the words from her lips. "Is it different with me, or I mean to say, am I different? Do I respond in the same way? Is there anything I don't…"

"Anna!" John's head snapped back against the pillow, his unshaven chin pointing to the ceiling. "Enough," he stated loudly, and after a prolonged, exasperated exhale. "Enough." His voice was softer now and he rolled over to meet her uncertain gaze. "How on earth could you doubt my desire for you or the times we share here?" His hand came up to cradle her cheek and his thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. Her lips caressed him as she mulled over his words.

"It's not that I doubt so much as I wonder how I compare. You've experienced much more of life than I have. Colourful experiences. Other women?" she offered.

"Colourful?" John laughed. "Hardly."

"You have though, haven't you?" Anna persevered, despite the tinge of jealousy in her stomach. "Laid with other women other than Vera and I?"

"Good lord." He winced at the mention of his ex-wife's name and fought for a moment to summon the words with which to deflect her uncomfortable line of questioning. However, the sincerity in her eyes, the fragile way in which she pursed her lips, made it difficult for him to elude her.

"Well, yes, I have known other women in that way. Vera, obviously. And two others," he continued, against his better judgement, "whom I should not have known in that way." He pulled his wife closer to him for what he had to say next, moving her as if she weighed nothing at all to rest face to face with him. "You bring me greater pleasure than I have ever known. The slightest touch, briefest kiss… It drives me mad, Anna. And before we even kissed for the first time…" His words trailed off as he seemed to get lost in the haze of his own thoughts.

"Yes?" Anna's voice had grown a little hoarser, a fact that was not lost on her husband.

"I used to watch you. Your tiny waist and the grace with which you moved. I used to daydream about coming up behind you while your worked." John's large hands turned Anna around so that her back now lay against his bare chest. "I would approach you quietly, perhaps whilst you busily attended to one of the bedrooms and pull you back against me. Allowing my hands to possess you and hold you tightly, not permitting you to move." John's hands began to mirror his words and his voice too began to change.

"Mmmmmmm," Anna replied, silently recalling similar fantasies that she too had entertained during that period of restraint and longing.

"I'd kiss your neck then and whisper all manner of ungentlemanly things in your ear, taking in your scent and making you shiver."

Anna's neck craned back against him. "Tell me. Tell me what you would have said?"

John swallowed. He could tell that she was becoming just as aroused as he by their discussion and so he decided to oblige her, despite his cheeks burning crimson. "I'd have told you that I wanted to hear what your voice sounded like when you cried out my name. How I desperately wanted to part your lips and taste you with my tongue. That sometimes I had to remain at the table for some minutes after you had left because of what your proximity did to me."

The whimper escaped her lips before she could even think to stop it. Anna felt her insides flutter and begin to tingle in the most deliciously torturous way. Raising a hand back and over her head, she pulled on his neck so that his lips were close to her ear.

"And did you feel that way about the others?"

He was kissing her neck now, fully engaged in the memory that was playing out so vividly in his mind.

"What?" he murmured, confused.

"The other women…Vera," Anna breathed.

His lips stilled and he drew back. "Anna, I just told you that you have nothing to be concerned with. Are we really still talking about this?"

She pulled him on top of her and levelled him with her blue eyes. "It's important to me, John," she began, "and if you tell me now, I'll never bring it up again, I swear it."

John placed his elbows more comfortably on either side of her head and shook his head in disbelief. "Okay, my love," he began softly. Saying it quickly and all at once was the best way, so with a deep breath he began. "I met Vera when I was in my early twenties. A girl that I had, been, well.. shall we say, very interested in, had just promised herself to a friend of mine. I was in a rather gloomy mood for a period of time. My mother and Vera's mother knew each other vaguely, as did she and I, even though she was a few years younger. Then one night after I left the ale house, Vera approached me and let it be known that she wanted to marry me. I thought she was being foolish at first, toying with me perhaps. But she began seeking me out more and more and finally we began courting." John picked a spot on the headboard and continued. "Vera was always very open with her desires so, yes, in answer to your questions, I did enjoy that side of our relationship. Even before marriage, to my shame."

"And, she... she pleased you?" Anna's voice wavered slightly at her own boldness.

"Good God…" he breathed, shaking his head once more. "Yes," he spoke, forcing the words from his lips in an agonised hiss. "She was attractive, bold and passionate. She touched me in all manner of ways that a woman had never dared to before. I was intoxicated from the beginning, but little did I know that, to her, I could have been anyone. Her family had undergone hard times and she simply needed a husband," he conceded regretfully. "But what Vera and I had could never compare to the connection we have, my love. Yes, that side of our relationship worked, and Vera and I continued to have marital relations after things began falling apart, but I never longed to come home to her like I do with you. Never daydreamed about worshipping her body as I do with you. Never had to hide the foolish grin from my face as I recalled our lovemaking as I do with you."

Anna smiled and lent up to capture his lips. "And the others?" she breathed against his mouth.

"The others were women I met when I was a drunkard." His eyes grew darker and a little unfocused she noticed.

Anna bit her lip at the harshness of his appraisal, despite how truthful it may have been.

"They had lost their husbands in the war and my own marriage had disintegrated before my eyes. For a short period of time, we offered each other what we could." John's voice grew even quieter now, as if hoping that his hushed tone would reduce the impact of his words. "It was just physical… clumsy encounters that provided a release of sorts. My memories of that time are so muddled that I can barely recall their faces. I'm not proud of it, Anna."

"I'm sorry, John. I'm sorry I made you recall unhappy times. I just needed to know."

"It's fine, Anna, truly. But to speak plainly, you being here beside me each night is like the most blissful dream I could ever have been blessed with. Your body pleases mine each and every time we are together. You may have noticed that fact," he grinned. "Your willingness to take the initiative makes my pulse race and to have you voice your needs does all manner of wicked things to me." The glint in his eye took Anna's breath away. John's weight now rested fully on hers and her hands began an eager exploration of his body. He soon joined in and each of them commenced a frantic race to shed their clothing as swiftly as possible.

"I just hope that I please you and give you the gratification that you deserve too, my love," he offered hesitantly, blowing out the candle on the bed side table.

"Oh, John," she chuckled, digging her fingers into his sides and casting her eyes down between them. "You know that you are more than enough to.."

"No," he laughed, his shoulders shaking at her naivety. " No… I hope that I make you feel the way that I do each time we make love, is what I mean. And that if something does not... please you, that you would let me know and not feel the need to feign."

"John," Anna spoke confidently, noticing that he was again avoiding her eyes. She smiled up at him coyly in the moonlight and finally he returned her grin, understanding her meaning implicitly. Her heart swelled. "Come here, my love. Let's see if you can make me cry out your name now."

"I believe that I am equal to that task Mrs. Bates," he growled, meeting her lips in earnest.


End file.
